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Your Guide to New England’s Best International Cuisine Is Back

WGBH’s Neighborhood Kitchens serves up more new episodes beginning?Saturday, September 21 at 4pm

BOSTON, Mass. (September 17, 2013) –The second season of WGBH’s New England Emmy-nominated Neighborhood Kitchens continues with more new episodes exploring New England’s cultural diversity through food. The culinary tour returns this Saturday, September 21 at 4pm on WGBH 2 when host Margarita Martínez heads to SoWa Open Market in Boston’s South End neighborhood to experience some creative Chinese-American cuisine prepared by chefs from Boston’s popular food truck Mei Mei Street Kitchen.

“Some food lovers travel far and wide to taste the flavors of the world,” said series producer Patricia Alvarado Núñez. “Neighborhood Kitchens shows you where to find them much closer to home.”

The second half of the season includes six more new episodes. In addition to Mei Mei’s Chinese-American creations, Margarita will discover the high-end art of Japanese cuisine in Boston’s South End, Greek cuisine in Portland, Maine, inventive and Mexican-inspired dishes in Newport and Jamestown, R.I., authentic Polish flavors in South Boston, and a French bistro in Cambridge, Mass.

Hours before the second half of the season begins, Martínez will be at WGBH Studios to host the noon session of Taste of WGBH Food & Wine Festival Artisan Taste. The three-day festival kicks off Thursday evening with the Chef’s Gala and also includes a fine wine auction on Friday, September 20.

All episodes premiere Saturdays at 4pm on WGBH 2, repeating Sundays at 12pm on WGBH 2, and 4pm on WGBX 44. Descriptions of the new fall episodes follow.

September 21 /Mei Mei Street Kitchen: Food trucks first hit the streets of Boston about two years ago, with just over a dozen options. Now there’s a fleet of 56 trucks that deliver a mind boggling mix of cuisines and cultures to neighborhoods and street corners of Boston. In this episode of Neighborhood Kitchens, host Margarita Martínez heads to SoWa Open Market, New England’s largest outdoor weekly bazaar, where she meets Margaret, Andy and Irene Li, the siblings behind the popular food truck Mei MeiStreet Kitchen. At Mei Mei Street Kitchen, Margarita experiences food truck madness and learns how to prepare some of Mei Mei Street Kitchen’sbest-sellers: kale salad, fiddlehead fern tempura, scallion pancake sandwich and sweet and sour pork.

September 28 /Oishii: Host Margarita Martínez learns about the high-end art of Japanese cuisine, when she stops at the Shops in Porter Square to experience what many call “a little slice of Tokyo” and visits Chef Yen’s kitchen at Oishii to learn the secret art of Japanese cuisine. Margarita also visits Stavis Seafoods with Chef Yen, where she learns how to choose the right tuna for the perfect sushi.

October 5 /Emilitsa: Portland, Maine is one of the country’s most underrated food destinations. This week, host Margarita Martínez tours Portland with Emilitsa’s chef Demos Regas, a James Beard Award semifinalist and a renowned champion of Greek cuisine. Chef Regas teaches Margarita how to prepare a classic Greekmeze, melitzanosalata(smoked eggplant appetizer), a tasty halibut with saltsa piperias (florina pepper sauce) and skorthalia (potato garlic puree), and rizogalo, a classic citrus rice pudding. While in Portland, Margarita goes to a fish market, tries a lobster roll, visits a farmers market and some small stores.

October 12 /Tallulah on Thames: For years, Newport was a retreat for American aristocrats. Neighborhood Kitchens goes inside the famous mansions overlooking the southern New England coastline before walking along historic Thames Street. Along the way, host Margarita Martínez stops at Tallulah on Thames,where Chef Jake Rojas creates a true culinary experience using only the freshest local ingredients he can find. At Tallulah on ThamesMargarita learns to prepare some of Chef Rojas’ modern and imaginative dishes: pork two-ways and lemon curd with blueberry merengue. The fun continues across the Jamestown Bridge, where Chef Rojas and his wife Kelly Ann Maurice opened Tallulah Tacosto celebrate the chef’s Mexican heritage.

November 2 /Café Polonia: In this episode of Neighborhood Kitchens, host Margarita Martínez visits Boston’s Polish Triangle, a narrow slice of the city located between Dorchester and South Boston. Most of its Polish residents now live in the suburbs, but this neighborhood still has traces of a once vibrant ethnic community it was more than a century ago. Here Margarita stops by a market, meets the Krakowiak Dancers of Boston to learn a few traditional steps, and visits chef Tadeusz Barcikowski at Café Polonia, where he has been preparing hearty Polish food since 2002. Chef Teddy teaches Margarita to prepare Polish dill pickled soup, golabki (stuffed cabbages) and szarlotka (Polish apple crisp).

November 9 /Sandrine’s Bistro: Host Margarita Martínez ends this second season of Neighborhood Kitchensin Harvard Square, visiting L.A Burdicks, a shop known for its chocolate confections, Cardullo’s, the oldest delicatessen in the square, and Sandrine’s Bistro, a French restaurant that specializes in the culinary tradition of Alsace region of eastern France. Sandrine’s award-winning Chef Raymond Ost teaches Margarita how to prepare three Alsatian specialties: pan seared foie gras with fresh figs and port wine vinaigrette, choucroute with sautéed scallops, mussels, monkfish and shrimp, finished with a Riesling seafood sauce, and flammekueche (or tarte flambé) with vanilla fromage blanc, sautéed bananas and caramel coulis.

Neighborhood Kitchensis produced by WGBH’s La Plaza unit, which has been producing Latino and multicultural programming for nearly 35 years. A companion website features an archive of full episodes, exclusive chef recipes, behind-the-scenes photos, in-depth chef profiles, and interactive boards for viewers to leave comments and recipes of their own. Stay connected to the series by liking Neighborhood Kitchens on Facebook or following the show on Twitter at @NKitchensWGBH.

About WGBH
WGBH Boston is America’s preeminent public broadcaster and the largest producer of PBS content for TV and the Web, including Masterpiece, Antiques Roadshow, Frontline, Nova, American Experience, Arthur, Curious George, and more than a dozen other prime-time, lifestyle, and children’s series. WGBH’s television channels include WGBH 2, WGBX 44, and the digital channels World and Create. WGBH TV productions focusing on the region’s diverse community include Greater Boston, Basic Black, High School Quiz Show, and Neighborhood Kitchens. WGBH Radio serves listeners across New England with 89.7 WGBH Boston Public Radio; 99.5 WCRB, Classical New England; and WCAI, the Cape and Islands NPR® Station. WGBH also is a major source of programs for public radio (among them, PRI’s The World®), a leader in educational multimedia (including PBS LearningMedia™, providing the nation’s educators with free, curriculum-based digital content), and a pioneer in technologies and services that make media accessible to deaf, hard of hearing, blind, and visually impaired audiences. WGBH has been recognized with hundreds of honors: Emmys, Peabodys, duPont-Columbia Awards and Oscars. Find more information at wgbh.org.